Bursting Bubbles

Bursting Bubbles

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The rise and rise of a group of artisanal producers in Champagne over the last twenty years has challenged everything we thought we knew about this famous region. In Bursting Bubbles, Robert Walters takes us on a journey to visit these great growers. Along the way, he reveals a secret history of Champagne and dispels many of the myths that still persist about this celebrated wine style. Controversial and ground breaking, Bursting Bubbles will change the way you think about Champagne.

"...This is part history lesson, part travel adventure story and wholly entertaining to read. It reminds me of Kermit Lynch’s ‘Adventures On The Wine Route’ with an Australian accent." — The Wine Depository

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Details

Based on a series of articles published in The World of Fine Wine, Bursting Bubbles is a ground-breaking new book that offers the reader an alternate history of Champagne and its greatest growers. Often controversial, it is a no-holds barred look at the world’s most famous wine region and the sparkling wine that it produces. It has the potential to change the way wine lovers think about Champagne. In his foreword, multi award winning author Andrew Jefford has called Bursting Bubbles, ‘The most engaging book about leading Champagne growers I’ve read, full of insight and detail’ and ‘…the most refreshing, pretension-pricking, myth-busting and amusingly unfrothy book on the subject.’

– Sparkling wine was not invented in Champagne – Winemakers in the region considered bubbles a fault at the time – Most of the myths around Pérignon began about a century after his death

THE AUTHOR

Robert Walters is a wine merchant and vineyard owner with over 25 years of experience in the wine trade. His obsessive search for great grower wines has led him to work closely with many important producers in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, as well as many of Champagne’s finest artisans. Over the years he has also found the time to write for publications such as The World of Fine Wine, and it was a series of these articles – on grower Champagne’s – that eventually led to this book.

Book Specifications

Additional Information

Sub Heading

A Secret History of Champagne and the Rise of the Great Growers

ISBN

9781846892547

Author

Roberts Walters

Binding

Casebound

Extent

235 x 160mm, 240 pages

Illustrations

Black & white photographs

Ebook

No

Reviews

"Bursting Bubbles is an absolute pleasure to read from start to finish. Packed with insightful perspectives, Robert Walters captures the people and history of Champagne unlike any other book. It’s very rare that a book on wine manages to fit both wine experts and novices equally. Whether you consider yourself an expert on Champagne, or you’ve never popped a cork in your life, Bursting Bubbles has plenty to offer both ends of the spectrum and everyone in between." - Derek Morrison – The Good Wine Shop (Independent Champagne Retailer of the Year 2017) & Co-Founder of “Grower Champagne Month” (you can read the full review here)

"It all gets off to a cracking start, since the author is a gifted writer who gives a delightfully engaging account of his epiphany, his unconditional surrender to the charms of the great grower Champagnes in God’s little acre. Robert Walters writes not because he wants to sell more; he simply thinks that the wines are brilliant and that the story of their creators should be told." - Michael Edwards, The World of Fine Wine

"Bursting Bubbles is about tradition, it’s about revolution—the ever-changing competition in carbonation and taste—and is oh so worth the read." - Drink Me Magazine

"Yet another book about Champagne? Yes, but this is no encyclopaedia covering a recap of the history of the region, the development of the traditional method and a rundown of the big names of Champagne. The book is engagingly written and will appeal to a wide variety of readers…This book is a consistently argued account of why grower Champagnes matter and to that extent it is an important book that anyone interested in Champagne should read. His prose is fluent and concise and he is like an entertaining, if slightly bossy, tour guide to his favourite growers. I would dearly love him to write more." - Heather Dougherty, Fizzicality

"It’s a brilliant and appealing book, and the story it tells is fascinating and compelling – leaving me thirsty to try some of the wines that are its subject." - Tim James, Wine Magazine South Africa

"...This is part history lesson, part travel adventure story and wholly entertaining to read. It reminds me of Kermit Lynch’s ‘Adventures On The Wine Route’ with an Australian accent." — The Wine Depository

"We have all been sold a pup, albeit a glossy-looking, expensive one. Most champagnes, even those made by the prestigious brands, are confections that have little to do with terroir (the natural environment of the grape) or the qualities that distinguish good wine. Big manufacturers discovered that wines of inferior quality could, when sweetened and sparkled, be sold to the wealthy as a prestige product. Out of this naked commercial opportunism came what Robert Walters calls, in this refreshingly iconoclastic book, "the world's first mass-market party drug". Fortunately for those of us who love fizz in our wine, a small and growing number of winemakers in Champagne are now drawing on the skills and knowledge that had been lost to the region to make "exceptional wines that just happen to have bubbles". " — The Age, Australia

"... this is a meticulously researched and scholarly work but it is written with verve and wit. In addition to a fascinating historical examination, Walters explodes numerous myths, which will amuse any lover of wine trivia." – Australian Financial Review

“…the most refreshing, pretension-pricking, myth-busting and amusingly unfrothy book on the subject I’ve read.” – ANDREW JEFFORD, Multi-award-winning author of The New France and columnist and contributing editor for both Decanter and The World of Fine Wine.

“In the tradition of Kermit Lynch’s Adventures n the Wine Route, Bursting Bubbles is a wonderful and informed exploration of the best grower Champagnes and the characters who make them. It shatters old myths and reveals new truths, making Champagne – the place and the wine – as intriguing, beautiful and magical as ever.” – ANDREA FROST, award-winning author of Through as Sparkling Glass and columnist for TimAtkin.com and The World of Fine Wine.

“Rob Walters’ approach to Champagne (and to wine in general – and to life!) in this beautifully written book is so cheerful and entertaining that one risks not realising how thoughtful and informative it is as well – a risk that I would advise any wine lover to take without hesitation.” – JESUS BARQUIN, Award-winning co-author of the The Finest Wines of Rioja and Northwest Spain and Sherry, Manzanilla and Montilla and the co-founder of Equip Navazos.